the spanish perfects ||

47

3The Spanish Perfects

In this chapter I will be concerned with developing a description of the cross- dialectal distribution of the periphrastic past in Spanish based on the set of features presented and developed in the previous chapter. It is not my intention to provide an exhaustive list of characteristics for every Spanish dialect concerning their usage of the perfect; instead, I will single out several dialects that are particularly representative of the type of variation observed. For each of the relevant cases, I describe those features that distinguish the use of the periphrastic past and attempt to situate them with respect to a Spanish perfect ‘prototype’. It remains to be seen whether or not the endeavor of describing a ‘pan-Spanish’ perfect will bear fruit since widespread variation makes a generalization of this type problematic. Still, there are distinguishable dialect features that will aid us in our description of the Spanish perfect.

The current chapter will explore the following issues:

1. The range of Spanish dialects can be divided into two groups in accordance with (i) the overall frequency of distribution of the periphrastic past in relation to the preterit and (ii) the distribution of the semantic/pragmatic features discussed in Chapter 2. This divi-sion reflects not only a geographic division but, more importantly, a semantic distinction.

2. The list of features developed in Chapter 2 and applied to the cross- dialectal data from Spanish provide a means of distinguishing the set of dialects whose perfects display increased perfectivity.

In section 3.1, I present the range of topics relevant to the description of the periphrastic past across dialects of Spanish, including a discussion of the perfect/perfective distinction (section 3.1.1). Next, I motivate my

10.1057/9781137029812 - The Spanish Perfects, Lewis Howe

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48 The Spanish Perfects

selection of representative dialects in section 3.2, basing this decision largely on frequency of use. Following this overview of relative frequen-cies, in section 3.3 I turn to a discussion of semantic factors that provide additional evidence for the dialect division proposed in section 3.2. Included in this list of illustrative factors is the dialectal behavior of the periphrastic past with (i) different types of temporal adverbials (section 3.3.1), (ii) narrative sequence (section 3.3.2), (iii) ‘Hot News’ uses (section 3.3.3), and finally (iv) Continuative interpretations (section 3.3.4). I end this chapter in section 3.4 with a brief discussion of the implications of the proposed cross- dialectal typology.

3.1 Preliminary observations

With respect to the present perfect across Spanish dialects, there is little variation in terms of the features discussed in section 2.3. Perfects (present, past, and future) across Spanish are consistent in terms of their auxiliary selection, participial agreement, and interpolation of clitic pronouns. In the development of the periphrastic past in Spanish, haber has become the auxiliary of choice, having undergone all of the typical processes of semantic and phonological reduction normally associated with grammaticalized forms.1 Though the periphrastic tener small clause construction can sometimes have a perfect- like interpretation, I will not treat this construction as part of the scope of variation associated with the distribution of the Spanish perfect.2 Nor will I address those dialects in which the synthetic past subjunctive form (e.g. cantar ‘to sing’ > cantara) is used with the meaning of a past perfect (see Butt and Benjamin 1994).

In much of the literature concerning the development of the perfect in Spanish, the most often cited feature is the degree of functional overlap with the preterit (see Chapter 1). That is, the simple and the periphrastic past constructions in Spanish both refer to an eventuality that occurred at some point in the past. The periphrastic past is assumed to include an added association with speech time. The preterit, on the other hand, is aspectually perfective, i.e. viewing an eventuality as hav-ing discernible temporal boundaries and being analyzable as a discrete unit (see Cipria and Roberts 2000). As discussed in Chapter 2, there are a number of features (e.g. compatibility with definite past adverbials and use in sequenced narratives) characteristic of perfectives that are not generally expressed by perfects. The fact that periphrastic past construc-tions in German or French, for example, may be used in these contexts is indicative of increased perfectivity. Similarly, there are Spanish


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The Spanish Perfects 49

dialects that show perfective uses, and it is these dialects that are most commonly treated in the literature. Thus, the application of the features presented in Chapter 2 to the categorization of Spanish dialects reflects the degree of perfectivity represented by the perfect in a given dialect.

In this part of the analysis, different Spanish dialects will be catego-rized in accordance with the set of features presented in Chapter 2. These include (i) availability of perfect types, (ii) patterns of adverbial co- occurrence, and (iii) compatibility in sequenced narratives. For the latter two features, I determine whether or not the selected dialects are compatible with definite past modification or with sequencing in narratives, two characteristics related directly to degree of perfectivity. Though this distinction is fairly straightforward, I will point out any pertinent deviations in the expected patterns. Concerning perfect types, the task of characterizing is not as clear. Quantifying the distribution of perfect uses in a specific dialect has been notoriously difficult given that contextual parameters and speaker/hearer interactions influence the resulting meaning (see Hernández 2004). Nevertheless, given that our task here is to distinguish dialects in terms of the perfectivity of the periphrastic past, there are reflexes in the types of meanings available that will provide a useful means of measurement. More specifically, as perfects become more perfective, Continuative uses, which are semantically imperfective, should be dispreferred. Moreover, following Schwenter (1994b), the degree to which the ‘Hot News’ use of the perfect is generalized is a further indication of the level of perfectivity. The advantage of discussing these two features, as opposed to the availa-bility of types of interpretations (à la Comrie) or relevance implications, is that it affords the analysis a greater degree of empirical objectivity. For both of these features I provide evidence that supports the proposed classification.

To summarize, the features that distinguish the use of the periphrastic past in Spanish are largely semantic and pragmatic, primarily related to the range of temporal functions available. In addition to the survey of features, I present quantitative data concerning the relative frequency of use of the periphrastic past in relation to the simple past. These data represent a number of corpus sources, including examples gathered in my own fieldwork.

3.1.1 Simple and periphrastic pasts in Spanish

In addition to the aforementioned factors, I will also describe the dis-tribution of the Spanish perfect in relation to the preterit (simple past perfective). Much of the literature regarding the variable dialectal uses


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of the perfect in Spanish relies on the division of labor between these two forms as a means of determining usage.3 Using this distinction as a measure, it is possible to divide Spanish dialects into two distinct groups: (i) those in which the preterit is favored as the ‘default’4 form for making past tense reference (e.g. Mexican Spanish) and (ii) those in which the periphrastic past has emerged as the dominant form for marking discrete events occurring in the past (e.g. Peninsular Spanish). As one might expect, there are a number of dialects whose simple/periphrastic past distinction does not fall along such well-defined lines. For the purposes of the current discussion, I will focus my analysis on describing those uses of the perfect that are ‘peripheral’ with respect to the two features described above. Thus, while my aim is to determine the set of features that are core to the periphrastic past in Spanish across dialects, it will be necessary to temper these claims with a discussion of dialect-specific cases that may or may not be representative of a pan- Spanish norm.

Before proceeding further with this dialectal survey, there are two crucial points that must be made. The first concerns the observed vari-ation of the simple and periphrastic past forms, which, as mentioned above, overlap temporally in much the same way as the simple past and present perfect in English. Consider the examples in (1) and (2):

(1) Juan llegó.Juan arrive.PASTPERF

‘Juan arrived.’(2) Juan ha llegado.

Juan have.3 arrive.PARTICIPLE

‘Juan has arrived.’

Our initial reaction to (1) and (2) is that the two forms share the property of making some type of reference to an event occurring in the past. Much of the work dedicated to discerning the exact nature of the distinction between these two forms builds on the observation that past reference is a common trait of both. It should be noted, however, that if past reference is reason enough to propose functional overlap then we should be able to find cases in which the present perfect over-laps with the Spanish simple past imperfective, as in (3) below. To my knowledge, no such situation exists in Spanish, though there are some analyses that argue that the perfect is imperfective in certain dialects.5 It is generally claimed that the simple and periphrastic past constructions additionally overlap in terms of their aspectual features (i.e. both are perfective), ruling out a comparison with the Spanish imperfective past.6


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(3) Juan llegaba.Juan arrive.PASTIMP

‘Juan was arriving/used to arrive/was going to arrive.’

The second point concerns the proposal of a typological ‘scale’, which describes Spanish dialects as possibly favoring the simple or periphrastic past. A scalar analogy in this case is not entirely appropriate since its two ends do not represent complementary cases of the proposed distribu-tion. That is, in the cases in which the perfect is favored (e.g. Peninsular Spanish), perfective uses of the perfect are limited to certain temporal contexts, such as describing events that happened during the ‘today’ interval. With these same dialects, the preterit (simple past), while restricted in use, can still be found in virtually any type of context in which past reference is made. At the other end of the spectrum, preterit- favoring Spanish varieties such as Mexican Spanish do not express the opposite situation, i.e. the preterit does not necessarily subsume the uses of the periphrastic past, such as continuation of a past eventuality. What is in question here is whether or not the extension commonly noted with the perfect in dialects such as that of Madrid in Spain is reflected inversely by a similar progression of the preterit in other varieties (e.g. most varieties of Mexican Spanish). Put another way, to what extent is the preterit simply maintaining its status as the primary form of past reference in these latter dialects as opposed to actually gaining ground on the perfect? In a well- known proposal, Harris (1982) describes the situation as one in which the division observed in Mexican Spanish, as opposed to the Peninsular cases, represents a historically prior stage in the grammaticalization of the periphrastic past, suggesting that the preterit is not ousting the perfect in any fashion analogous to its Continental counterpart (see section 1.2).7 Though I will not be treating this topic in detail, it is still worth noting that the scale of simple/periphrastic past distribution primarily reflects frequency and contexts of use rather than relative degrees of grammaticalization.

Before turning to the next section, it should be pointed out that the term ‘grammaticalization’ is not completely accurate as applied to the shift from perfect > perfective in Spanish since this particular phase of the change is not accompanied by the types of structural innovations generally said to be indicative of a form undergoing the change from lexical to grammatical meaning (e.g. change in word order; see Hopper and Traugott 2003, Ocampo 2006). Instead, this process is better under-stood as a type of default setting, an idea corroborated by Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos (2008). Nevertheless, in distinguishing between


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the dialectal situation of the simple and periphrastic past forms in terms of their patterns of grammaticalization, the objective here is to draw attention to the observation that in perfect- favoring varieties it is possible to propose an actual shift in meaning, whereas the preterit- favoring dialects are more appropriately described as a type of meaning preservation.

3.1.2 Dialect choice

The features that I have chosen to use as the basis for comparison in this dialectal survey are indicative of the type of semantic and pragmatic issues that will be addressed in subsequent chapters. While I do not wish to dismiss summarily factors such as polarity or clause type (among others) as relevant to either the cross- dialectal distribu-tion of periphrastic past or the resulting formal analysis that will be proffered, I have chosen the temporal factors of adverbial compatibility and sequencing effects since they most directly represent the meaning aspects analyzed in the forthcoming examination.

Furthermore, by characterizing dialectal variation in terms of the distribution of the Spanish perfect with respect to the preterit, my objective is to provide some means of empirical measure. Having said this, I have chosen to focus initially on the varieties spoken in Spain and Mexico. There are several reasons for presenting the survey with these two dialects as representative samples. First, in terms of the factors that will be discussed (e.g. adverb compatibility, use in narrative, and distinction from the preterit), the quantitative analysis reveals that Peninsular and Mexican Spanish are located at opposite extremes of the scale of simple vs periphrastic past usage, i.e. Peninsular dialects generally favor the perfect for past reference while Mexican varieties favor the preterit (see Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2008). Even a simple comparison of usage rates (to be presented below) demonstrates that the two dialects are fairly distinct when it comes to this particular feature.

The situation of the perfect in these varieties from Spain and Mexico is not such that all dialects are equally perfect- favoring or preterit- favoring, respectively. In Spain, the majority of studies that discuss this phenomenon are based on data from urban centers in the cen-tral and eastern part of Spain such as Madrid, Alicante, and Valencia (see Schwenter 1994a, Serrano 1994, Cartagena 1999, among others). Galician Spanish, however, does not show the same preference for the periphrastic past (see Chamorro 2010).8 Throughout the chapter I will use the term ‘Peninsular Spanish’ to refer to those dialects in which the


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periphrastic past is used with perfective functions. Likewise, ‘Mexican Spanish’ will be used as a cover term for those dialects in Mexico which strongly favor the preterit for perfective past reference, though this situ-ation is generally considered to be descriptive of Mexican Spanish as a whole (cf. Lope Blanch 1972 and Moreno de Alba 1978, 2003).

The second reason concerns the available literature that treats similar simple vs periphrastic preferences in other parts of the Spanish- speaking world. Most notably, the perfect in some South American Spanish dialects has long been observed to express functions akin to those of the preterit.9 In fact, there are a number of authors who claim that the perfective uses of the periphrastic past in both the Peninsular and South American cases are parallel, ostensibly due to equivalent paths of grammaticalization (cf. Penny 2000). In a recent proposal, Howe and Schwenter (2008) argue that use of the periphrastic past in some varieties of Andean Spanish (e.g. Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador) is distinct from that of Peninsular Spanish even though the perfects of both dialects exhibit some degree of overlap with the preterit. More precisely, the perfect in these South American cases shows neither hodiernal (i.e. uses in the ‘today’ interval) nor narrative uses. Though in this chapter I offer frequency data concerning the distribution of the perfect and the preterit in Peruvian Spanish, I will delay a more detailed analysis of the situation of this particular dialect (or group of dialects) until the proceeding chapter. At that time I will discuss more specifically the distribution of the periphrastic past in the so- called ‘perfective’ dialects and determine the extent to which they follow (or not) the Peninsular norm.

Similar to the Mexican Spanish situation, there are other dialects in which the preterit is the preferred form for perfective past refer-ence. Burgos (2004) offers an extensive overview of the periphrastic past in Argentine Spanish, arguing that its use and frequency are not significantly different from other American varieties. Other studies of the perfect in this region have also suggested that the preterit is the preferred past and that the perfect follows the ‘American Norm’ (see Donni de Mirande 1980, 1992, Kubarth 1992a, b). Kubarth goes on to argue that despite its similarity with other American dialects the Argentine present perfect ‘follows its own evolution’ (1992a, b, cited in Burgos 2004: 31), though he gives little evidence that its evolution or distribution are qualitatively distinct from that of similar uses in the region. This lack of explanation notwithstanding, in the absence of a similar analysis it is reasonable to assume that the perfect in Argentine Spanish and that of Mexican Spanish are not entirely equivalent.


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In a more recent analysis of the simple vs periphrastic past distinction in Rioplatense Spanish, Rodríguez Louro (2009) provides quantitative evidence from written and spoken corpora of the overwhelming preference for the preterit over the perfect (see also Kempas 2006). What is additionally intriguing about her analysis is her discussion of the contexts in which the periphrastic past has become specialized. One context in particular, i.e. indefinite past, is discussed in some detail by Rodríguez Louro who offers evidence of increased usage of the periphras-tic past as a marker of event ‘type-focus’ (vs ‘token-focus’, following Dahl and Hedin 2000), noting that the perfect in this variety is frequently used to refer to nonspecific events (see Lindstedt 2000). Note example (4), taken from Rodríguez Louro (2009: 116, example 38):

(4) Yo me he enamorado de tipos; me enamoro de tipos.‘I have fallen in love with guys; I do fall in love with guys.’

For the reasons mentioned above, I will restrict this review of sali-ent dialectal distinctions to Peninsular and Mexican Spanish since it is these two cases that have received the most attention in the literature, having been subjected to a variety of both descriptive and theoretical scrutiny. Consequently, I will limit the discussion of the increased use of the periphrastic past in Andean Spanish, opting instead to take up this issue in the following chapter. Moreover, the Mexican/Argentine comparison is limited to the observation that both demonstrate a prefe-rence for the preterit, though the precise nature and distribution of this purported inclination have received much more attention in the Mexican case. In the proceeding section I present a general quantitative analysis that supports the hypothesis that dialects do indeed differ with respect to their overall usage frequencies of the simple vs periphrastic past, at which time I will include some illustrative figures describing the perfect in Lima, Peru, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The observation that will be made is that these two dialects are, at least in terms of overall frequency, parallel to the samples from Madrid, Spain, and Mexico City, Mexico, respectively. Crucially, I am not claiming that the parallelism in overall frequency distributions of these forms among these varieties is evidence of similar constraints on their usage. Quite the contrary, the analysis developed here assumes that overall frequencies tend to obscure important distinctions in functionality of grammatical forms (see Howe 2009) and that a more rigorous treatment of the simple vs periphrastic past dichotomy reveals differing functional parameters of usage (see Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2008).


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3.2 Simple vs periphrastic past: cross- dialectal frequencies

In a recent analysis, Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos (2008) provide an extensive survey of different corpus sources to account for the simple vs periphrastic past distinction in Peninsular and Mexican Spanish. Their study compares usage rates as reflected in the Mexican Habla Culta/Habla Popular and the Peninsular COREC corpora, both consisting of approxi-mately 100,000 words. The results of their survey demonstrate a clear distinction in the distribution of the perfect and the preterit in these two dialects. A summary of their findings is presented in Table 3.1.10

In the Peninsular corpus, among the total number of forms (1783), periphrastic pasts were used in almost 54 percent (N � 956) of the cases. Only 15 percent (N � 331) of the tokens extracted from the Mexican corpus were perfects. Clearly, the overall preference of forms goes in opposite directions in these two dialects. Note also that if we include the Argentine data in the comparison, it would appear that the directio-nality of preference is weighted towards the simple past, not unlike the situation in the Mexican Spanish data. Closer inspection of the literature on the simple vs periphrastic past issue in Argentine Spanish suggests that the perfect has become highly specialized as a marker of indefinite past, distinguishing it from the largely aspectual functions of the Mexican perfect (Rodríguez Louro 2009). This point aside, this ini-tial comparison between the Peninsular and the Mexican samples does indeed provide preliminary indication of distinct distributions in these two varieties.

To provide an additional point of contrast, I present Table 3.2,11 which compares the simple and periphrastic past frequencies from different dialects in Latin and South America – e.g. Argentina, El Salvador, and Peru. Recall that Latin American dialects of Spanish are considered conservative, generally displaying a preference for the preterit. As noted above, there are some dialects in which there is an increased usage of the perfect, as in the Peruvian case. When compared with the Peninsular situation, the Peruvian data do not indicate the same extreme of perfect usage – cf. 54 percent in the former versus

Table 3.1 Cross- dialectal distribution of the simple and periphrastic past: I

Simple past/preterit Periphrastic past/perfect

Peninsular Spanish 46% (N � 827) 54% (N � 956)

Mexican Spanish 85% (N � 1903) 15% (N � 331)

Argentine Spanish 94% (N � 783) 6% (N � 47)


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27.1 percent for the latter. If the comparison is made, however, with respect to Mexican Spanish, we find that the periphrastic past is used nearly twice as much in the Peruvian corpus. In conclusion, these dis-tributions suggest that innovation of the periphrastic past be measured relative to the type of variation found in a particular region. Thus, while the Peruvian data may not represent the same scale of perfect preference as that of Peninsular Spanish, it is reasonable to argue that it does indeed represent an exception to the Latin American norm when compared to the Mexican data.

Also important in the data from Table 3.2 is the distribution of the periphrastic past in the data from El Salvador (San Sebastián) and Argentina (Buenos Aires). As expected, the frequencies of these two samples are markedly different from that of Peninsular Spanish, following the trend observed with the Mexican perfect in Table 3.1. What is interesting about the Salvadoran and Argentine cases is their comparison with other Latin American dialects. For Argentine Spanish, the perfect seems only to have a marginal presence in the data, com-prising a mere 6 percent (N � 47) of the tokens (cf. Rodríguez Louro 2009).12 On the other hand, the Salvadoran data exhibit a significant departure from the ‘normative’ use represented by the Mexican perfect. In his analysis of Salvadoran Spanish from San Sebastián, Hernández argues that ‘the higher frequency of PP [present perfect] shown in the comparative analysis [22 percent (N � 838)] seems to suggest that the PP is in fact generalizing in this Salvadoran variety in comparison to more conservative varieties, such as Mexican Spanish’ (2004: 151). Indeed, it is not the case that geographical proximity automatically equates to distributional equivalence. See Table 3.3 for a comparison of all the Latin American samples. Note that, in terms of dialects surveyed, Argentine Spanish represents the preterit- favoring extreme while Peruvian Spanish displays a different tendency. This distribution is consistent with the observations made in section 3.1.3.

To complement the summary provided in Table 3.3, I present a comparison of three non- Latin American dialects in Table 3.4 – those of

Table 3.2 Cross- dialectal distribution of the simple and periphrastic past: II



Salvadoran Spanish 78% (N � 2932) 22% (N � 838)

Peruvian Spanish 72.9% (N � 2616) 27.1% (N � 972)


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Madrid, Valencia, and the Canary Islands.13 While I do not believe that Canary Island Spanish is typical with respect to the Peninsular mainland use of the periphrastic past, it allows us to compare the perfect- favoring dialects of Madrid and Valencia with a non- Latin American Spanish case. Both the Madrid and Valencia cases display a high rate of usage of the periphrastic past with respect to the simple past – roughly 54 percent in Madrid and 51 percent in Valencia. The Canary Island Spanish situation, however, is quite different. The periphrastic past accounts for only 14 percent (N � 114) of the tokens, a distribution not unlike that of Argentine or Mexican Spanish. The disjoint between the Madrid and Valencia data on the one hand and the Canary Island Spanish data on the other highlights the fact that the mainland Peninsular case, at least in these varieties, is unique among the dialects surveyed.

It has been suggested that the grammaticalization of a perfect to a perfective in the Peninsular case is in fact an areal phenomenon, related geographically to similar situations in French, Italian, Catalan, and German (see Dahl 1985, Thieroff 2000, Giacolone Ramat 2008). In these languages, use of synthetic past is limited largely to formal, written contexts, and the periphrastic forms are used for reference to any type of past situation. Given this observation, perhaps a more suitable comparison class for the Peninsular Spanish data is that comprised of those languages in which the periphrastic past form has become a perfective. Consider Figure 3.1.

Table 3.3 Comparison of simple and periphrastic past forms in Latin American varieties




Salvadoran Spanish 78% (N � 2932) 22% (N � 838)

Peruvian Spanish 72.9% (N � 2616) 27.1% (N � 972)

Table 3.4 Comparison of simple and periphrastic past forms in Peninsular varieties


Madrid Spanish 46.6% (N � 239) 53.4% (N � 274)

Valencia Spanish 49.1% (N � 210) 50.9% (N � 218)

Canary Island Spanish 86% (N � 829) 14% (N � 114)


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The first point to note is that when compared to samples outside of Spanish, the situation of the periphrastic past in the Peninsular case does not seem that striking. In fact, it represents the least innovative of the comparison group, whereas the Spanish- internal comparisons all support the opposite claim. Of course, caution is needed when making a comparison across languages since there are a number of mitigating factors that may influence this distribution (e.g. tense morphology, syntax). Nonetheless, my objective with this comparison is to draw attention to the emerging picture of Peninsular Spanish as typologi-cally unique among its dialectal neighbors. That is, there are clearly two groups when it comes to describing the distribution of the simple and periphrastic past forms in Spanish. There are those, like the Peninsular case (Madrid, Valencia, Alicante, etc.), in which the perfect has begun the wholesale ousting of the preterit as the predominant (or perhaps default à la Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2008) form of past refer-ence. Then there are those dialects, primarily Latin American but also including Canary Island Spanish and Galician Spanish (among others), where the simple past is still the dominant form of past reference.

3.2.1 Summary

In light of the body of literature and the survey presented here, I have attempted to motivate a broad characterization of Spanish dialects based on relative frequencies of the simple and periphrastic past forms of past reference. As it turns out, this type of categorization allows us to distinguish two salient groups: the perfect- favoring dialects (e.g. Peninsular Spanish dialects) and the preterit- favoring ones (e.g. Mexican and Argentine Spanish). At this point, however, we must

PERFECT PERFECTIVE

American English,Mexican Spanish,

Mainland Scandanavian

Peninsular Spanish

French,Standard Italian,

CatalanStandard German

British English

Figure 3.1 Cross- linguistic comparison of semantic development with the periphrastic past


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ask ourselves whether or not these two groups represent the application of two opposing processes rather than merely expressing different frequency distributions. The literature concerning Peninsular Spanish consistently supports the claim that the semantic space of the peri-phrastic past is growing such that it is either infringing on uses of the simple past or subsuming them entirely (cf. Schwenter 1994a). With the other group (i.e. the preterit- favoring dialects), it is not clear whether or not a similar process is at work. I submit that the simple past in dialects such as Mexican Spanish is simply maintaining its presence, rather than extending to additional semantic spaces. Moreover, an account of the increased use of the periphrastic past in Latin American dialects (e.g. Peru and El Salvador) will be qualitatively different from that of the Peninsular case, representing a distinct range of factors influencing innovation. In Chapter 4 I will compare those Latin American dialects in which increased perfect usage has been attested to the distribution of the Peninsular cases. For now it should suffice to note that any complete description of the perfect across Spanish dialects must take these factors into consideration.

3.3 Cross- dialectal semantic features of the periphrastic past

This section focuses on a group of semantic features that, in addition to the frequency data presented in section 3.2, help to distinguish our two dialect groups. We have already observed that this distinction is reflected in part by the differential distribution of the simple and periphrastic past forms. If we accept Peninsular Spanish as our token example of perfect- preferring dialects and Mexican Spanish as representative of those that favor the preterit, then we can also address the claim that the perfect in the two dialects correspond to different degrees of perfec-tivity (cf. Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2008). Related to increased perfectivity are (i) increased usage/compatibility with definite past adverbials (e.g. yesterday, last week) and (ii) compatibility with narrative sequence. In the proceeding section, I describe the degree of perfectiv-ity displayed by the periphrastic past in the two aforementioned dialect groups, making reference to their interaction with certain temporal adverbs and their distribution in narratives. Furthermore, I discuss two additional issues related to perfectivity that shed further light on the cross- dialectal distribution of the Spanish perfect. These two issues con-cern the uses of the periphrastic past with either Continuative or Hot News interpretations.


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3.3.1 Co- occurrence with temporal adverbials

One of the hallmarks of a prototypical perfect is its incompatibility with past time adverbials such as yesterday or last year (see section 2.2.2). In general, the periphrastic past in Spanish, like that of English (and mainland Scandinavian, for example), is not compatible with these types of adverbs (see Table 2.2). Observe example (5):

(5) Juan ha llegado *ayer / *el martes / *a las tres.Juan have.3 arrive.PARTICIPLE yesterday/ the Tuesday/ at the three‘Juan has arrived *yesterday/*on Tuesday/*at three o’clock.’

Co- occurrence of these types of adverbials with the perfect is a useful measure in discerning dialectal distinctions.14 The class of adverbs in question is said to situate an event at some discrete point in the past that, crucially, does not overlap with the time of utterance. Potentially ambiguous cases like today, this morning, or this week allow for either a reading in which the interval located by the adverbial includes the moment of utterance, as in (6), or one in which these two temporal intervals do not intersect, shown in (7). Incompatibility is only a consideration in the latter case, since the perfect is gener-ally said to require inclusion of the moment of utterance. Likewise, it might seem that a parallel claim can be made regarding the simple past, i.e. incompatibility with inclusive readings of adverbials like this morning.

(6) Inclusive readingSamuel no ha comido/ ??comió esta mañana.Samuel not have.3 eat.PARTICIPLE/ eat.PERFPAST this morning‘Samuel has not eaten/did not eat this morning.’

(7) Disjoint readingSamuel no ??ha comido/ comió esta mañana.Samuel not have.3 eat.PARTICIPLE/ eat.PERFPAST this morning‘Samuel has not eaten/did not eat this morning.’

The factors contributing to the dissonance between these potentially problematic adverbials have been argued to be pragmatic, mainly concerning the speaker’s interpretation of the temporal location of the speech event (see Portner 2003). Thus, if a speaker utters (8) at ten o’clock in the morning as a response to an inquiry regarding the list of activities, then use of the adverbial esta mañana ‘this morning’ is perfectly acceptable. If, however, the speaker offers this same answer


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at five o’clock in the afternoon, use of the periphrastic past would be considered marked in many Spanish dialects (and in English15).

(8) He sacado la basura esta mañana (a las siete).have.1 remove.PARTICIPLE the trash this morning at the seven‘I took out the trash this morning (at seven o’clock).’

Today adverbials

For Peninsular Spanish, compatibility of adverbs generally judged as awkward in other dialects is a defining characteristic of the periphrastic past (see Harris 1982, Fleischman 1983, Schwenter 1994a, Serrano 1994, García Fernández 2000b, Brugger 2001, Carter 2003, Kempas 2006). The perfect in certain regions of Spain, most notably Madrid, Alicante, and Valencia, has come to take on features of a perfective similar to the preterit. Observe example (9) – uttered at three o’clock in the afternoon:

(9) Me he levantado esta mañana a las seis.CL have.1 lift.PARTICIPLE this morning at the six‘I got up this morning at seven o’clock.’

For many non- Peninsular speakers, example (9) is ungrammatical or at the very least infelicitous. And despite being well documented in dialects of Peninsular Spanish, there are still those that consider the ‘perfective’ use of the perfect to be marked or even stigmatized as reflected in these two selections:

Students of languages in which the distinction is blurred or lost must avoid translating sentences like Je l’ai vu hier, Ich habe ihn gestern gesehen, L’ho visto ieri ‘I saw him yesterday’ as *Le/Lo he visto ayer (correctly Le/Lo vi ayer). Such misuse [sic] of the perfect is sometimes heard in popular Madrid speech. (Butt and Benjamin 1994: 223)

In written Peninsular Spanish there is some evidence that the preter-ite tense, at least in the domain of news agency reports, is beginning to oust the perfect tense when referring to the recent continuing past, for example Dijo hoy rather than the Peninsular standard Ha dicho hoy. There is some evidence that the preterite is currently dis-placing the perfect in Spain and this departure from the Castilian norm is being actively combated by the DEU ... (Stewart 1999: 100)


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Schwenter (1994a) argues that the perfect in Peninsular Spanish has become the unmarked form for referring to past events occurring in the ‘today’ interval. Following Dahl (1985), he refers to this type of perfect as ‘hodiernal’ (see also Serrano 1994). While it may not be clear at first glance how these uses of the perfect are different from prototypical uses given that time of utterance is generally included in a today interval, this use of the perfect is exceptional in that it allows for a disjoint reading, i.e. one in which the interval denoted by the adverb does not overlap with the time of utterance. Additionally, as Schwenter argues, this process of change from perfect to perfective is motivated by the gradual loss of relevance implications associated with the meaning of the periphrastic past. More specifically, he notes the following:

The PP [Present Perfect] form has absorbed the temporal context which accompanies these adverbs, and incorporated the hodiernal qualities which were previously discernible only from the exchange of a non- today adverb with a today adverb; such an exchange would thus cause a shift from Preterite to PP. (Schwenter 1994a: 89)

Thus, as speakers come to use the periphrastic past more frequently to refer to events occurring in a ‘today’ interval and carrying no relevance implication, the form takes on the particular temporal features of the context. In his study of the Spanish spoken in Alicante (southeastern Spain), Schwenter found that when making reference to an event occurring in a ‘today’ past, speakers chose the perfect at a rate of 86 percent (N � 253). Some examples of this perfective use of the perfect in Peninsular Spanish are given below (perfects in boldface and adverbials underscored; citation to interviews from Madrid and Valencia).

(10) Bueno, pues, me he levantado a las ocho. Me ha despertado mi madre para darme muchas instrucciones sobre tareas domésticas.‘Good, well, I woke up at eight o’clock. My mother woke me up in order to give instructions about some chores.’ (VAL05 070505: Interview 1)

(11) Pues, a ver, me he levantado a las siete y media. Eh, me he llamado a mi perrito para que lo bajase a pasear. Me he subido con él a las ocho y media así.‘Well, let’s see, I got up at seven o’clock. Um, I called my dog so that I he could come down and go for a walk. I walked with him at eight o’clock.’ (MAD05 063005: Interview 14)


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In both examples (10) and (11) we see that the periphrastic past is used with expressions of time which could be considered a subtype of the definite past adverbials described in the previous section. The vast majority of definite past adverbials used with hodiernal perfects are of the type shown in (10) and (11) – e.g. a las siete ‘at seven o’clock’. This is probably due to the nature of the interview questions used to elicit the responses (i.e. Cuéntame tu día hoy ‘Tell me about your day’).16 Still, the use of these adverbials with the perfect stands in stark contrast to the general Latin American cases in which no such systematic co- occurrence is attested.

Pre- today adverbials

Even more striking than the hodiernal case is the fact that the perfect in Schwenter’s data was chosen 28 percent of the time with a ‘pre-today’ modifier (e.g. ayer ‘yesterday’), as in (12):

(12) Carlos ha lavado su coche ayer.Carlos have.3 wash.PARTICIPLE his car yesterday‘Carlos washed his car yesterday.’

Some claim that examples like (12), also referred to as a ‘Hesternal’ past reference (Serrano 1994), show a relaxing of the requirement of temporal recency imposed by the perfect (cf. Carter 2003). If this were the case, there should be no reason why the perfect should not directly become a perfective, assuming all of the functions of a preterit. Furthermore, since my analysis does not assume that the perfect imposes any type of temporal restriction on the predicate in its scope, I argue, following Schwenter (1994a), that it is actually the erosion of relevance due to overuse that allows for gradual expansion of the peri-phrastic past into a wider variety of types of past reference. Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos (2008) propose that the ‘shift from hodiernal to general perfective advances in temporally indeterminate past contexts’ (2008: 1). This claim supports the view that the perfect > perfective gram-maticalization path proceeds along less specific temporal parameters rather than expanding into discrete temporal domains, i.e. today > yesterday > the day before yesterday > etc. (cf. Carter 2003, Kempas 2006). To illustrate this use of the periphrastic past in Peninsular Spanish, I provide a few examples below.

(13) Pues, ayer he hecho más o menos lo mismo.‘Well, yesterday I did more or less the same thing.’ (MAD05 063005: Interview 14)


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(14) Vale. Bueno,pues, eh ... hoy me he levantado por la mañana ... y ayer me quedé a dormir en casa de mis padres.‘OK. Well, um ... today I woke up in the morning ... and yesterday I stayed in my parents’ house to sleep.’ (MAD05 062905: Interview 7)

(15) Ayer he comprado un aire acondicionado y me da calor en vez de frío.‘Yesterday I bought an air conditioner and I’m getting hot instead of cold.’ (COREC, BCON014B)

(16) Lo escuché esta mañana, lo he escuchado esta mañana.‘I heard it this morning, I heard it this morning.’ (COREC, CCON028A)

Use of the periphrastic past in (13) is a clear case of the compatibility of the perfect with adverbs like ayer. Examples (14) and (15) demon-strate the canonical ‘hodiernal’ use of the periphrastic past, where the speaker makes reference to a discrete event occurring at some earlier time during the same day. Note that in (14) when the speaker switches the temporal reference to a pre- today context (i.e. ayer ‘yesterday’) she also changes to the preterit with me quedé ‘I stayed’. For (15), use of the perfect is maintained even in the pre- today context. Finally, for (16) the speaker self- corrects to the periphrastic past after having already started the utterance using the simple past.17

Frequency adverbials

With respect to durative or iterative adverbials such as siempre ‘always’ or varias veces ‘several times’ (or frequency adverbials following Smith 1997), Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos (2008) maintain that the peri-phrastic past in Mexican Spanish, which is argued to be used primarily for Continuative interpretations, should favor these adverbials. They cite the following examples (cited in Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2008: 15, examples 17a and 16a, respectively):

(17) Siempre, toda la vida, ella ha trabajado.‘Always, all of her life, she has worked.’ (Lope Blanch 1976)

(18) Aunque he pasado mil veces por ahí; pero ya ni me he fijado.‘Even though I have passed by there a thousand times; but I haven’t even noticed.’ (Lope Blanch 1976)

There are analogous cases in found in Peninsular Spanish. Observe (19):

(19) Bueno, he jugado al voleibol toda la vida.‘Well, I have played volleyball all of my life.’ (MAD05 062905: Interview 2)


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Note also that with iterative adverbials like varias veces ‘several times’ or siempre ‘always’, the preterit is also compatible:

(20) Yo estuve aquí varias veces y siempre vi lo mismo.‘I was there several times, and I always saw the same thing.’ (Corpus de referencia del espanol actual; Real Academia Española)

In their analysis, Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos observe that fre-quency adverbials occur primarily with the perfect in both the Mexican and Peninsular Spanish samples. In fact, these types of adverbials are found with the perfect more frequently in Peninsular Spanish than in Mexican – 88 vs 59 percent. Their explanation for these results is that the Peninsular perfect maintains many of its perfect functions (e.g. Continuative). I would argue, however, that these adverbials do not actually represent Continuative contexts, at least not as I defined them in the previous chapter. Notice that none of the examples in (17)–(18) refer to a state or an activity that is in fact ongoing at the moment of speech; rather, they all refer to the continuation of some interval, which itself continues at speech time, containing iterative instantiations of an event or state. Thus, it is not surprising that both the simple and periphrastic past forms are compatible with these cardinal adverbials (e.g. varias veces); with the latter the speaker makes reference to some past interval in which a number of instances of a given eventuality occurred, while the former expresses essentially the same function but requires that the speech time be included in the salient interval. Later in this chapter I will defend the claim that emergent loss of true Continuative readings is indeed characteristic of perfective perfects.

3.3.2 Narrative uses of the periphrastic past

Recall from the previous chapter (section 2.2.4) that one of the features of a prototypical perfect is its inability to sequence events in a narrative. The data presented from Spanish demonstrated that the periphrastic past, at least in the Latin American dialects, is closer to the perfect prototype in that it does not express this function, again suggesting a decreased degree of perfectivity. In light of our current survey, however, the appearance of the perfect in narrative contexts is not only useful to our developing dialectal typology but moreover crucial, as it represents a watershed in the development from perfect to perfective. That is, while it may be the case that some Latin American dialects show a measure of compatibility, albeit sporadic, with definite past adverbials, there are no dialects in which the perfect has devel-oped narrative functions. In the following chapter, I will discuss in


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more detail the comparison of this feature among the ‘perfective’ dialects of Latin America.

Peninsular Spanish

As I noted earlier, the periphrastic past in Peninsular Spanish is unique among other Spanish dialects in its compatibility with a certain set of definite past time adverbials, namely those occurring in the today or pre- today intervals. Accompanying this innovation is the use of the perfect to report a sequence of events occurring in the interval of today, similar to the use of the passé composé in Old French (see Dahl 1985, Schwenter 1994a).18 The two narratives provided in examples (21) and (22) were produced by speakers of Peninsular Spanish in response to the prompt Cuéntame tu día hoy ‘Tell me about your day today’.19

(21) Me he levantado [laugh] a las ... a las nueve de la mañana. He desayu-nado en casa. Me (he) hecho la comida. He ido a la casa de mis padres a ... para hacer unas burocracias, y luego he venido a la universidad ...‘I got up [laugh]at ... at nine o’clock in the morning. I ate break-fast at home. I made lunch. I went to my parents’ house to take care of some business, and later I came to the university.’ (MAD05 062905: Interview 4)

(22) he trabajado un ratito. Y a las dos, nos hemos bajado para comer ... que hemos comido allí detrás en el Agujero. Y, y ahora he vuelto.‘I worked a little. And at two o’clock, we went out to eat ... we ate behind here at The Agujero [a bar]. And, and now I’ve returned.’ (VAL 05 070405: Interview 6)

(23) Me voy. Bueno pues me (he) levantado a las ocho de la mañana y he desayunado mi café mis galletas etcétera etcétera. He tenido hoy es un día más bien de de biblioteca porque em supuestamente hay muchas clases que ya no tenemos porque se acercan los parciales se acercan los finales y no ya es supuestamente han terminado el temario entonces he estado en la biblioteca estudiando. Después cuando me (he) levantado y me he vestido a las nueve y media de la mañana es el café que me estaba tomando ...un café estaba haciendo algunas ideas para para el guión ... cambiando en el nombre de la la protagonista y haciendo unas unas ideas ... lo que tenía. Luego me he vuelto a la biblioteca y he estado estudiando también la lingüística. Y después me han han venido unas compañeras y me han dicho de salir al colegio de Málaga está allí en el patio un rato.

‘I’ll start. Well, I got up at eight o’clock in the morning and had my coffee, my cookies, etc., etc. I had, today is really more of a


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library day because, uh, there are of course classes that we don’t have because the partial exams are coming up, the final exams are coming up and it isn’t that they’ve completed the course schedule so I have been in the library studying. After when I got up and got dressed at nine thirty in the morning it was the coffee that I was drinking ... a coffee was giving me ideas for the comic book ... changing the names of the protagonist and working on some some ideas ... whatever I had. Next I returned to the library and have also been studying linguistics. And afterward some friends found me and told me about going out for a bit to the colegio de Málaga which is right there in the patio.’ (MADF2001, Alcalá de Henares 2009)

Common to all of these examples is the use of the periphrastic past to present a series of discrete events for their own sake that are not related to another event, a property which more generally characterizes events presented as having occurred in sequence (Bybee et al. 1994). If we temporarily assume a different perspective regarding examples (21), (22), and (23), we might argue that the perfect is used merely to present a list of activities in which the speaker has engaged during the day. This use of the perfect fits reasonably within the spectrum of functions that might be observed in other Spanish dialects (as well as in English, see Pancheva and von Stechow 2004). The presence of the temporal adverbs luego ‘later’ in (21) and y a las dos ‘and at 2 o’clock’ and ahora ‘now’ in (22), however, demonstrates that the events must be interpreted as occurring in sequence. Similarly, the speaker in example (23) makes extensive use of adverbials that indicate sequence, e.g. después ‘after’ and luego ‘later’, including the use of a periphrastic past in a when- clause, as in después cuando me (he) levantado, a feature that Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos point out as typical of perfective past forms.

Thus, it seems that the periphrastic past in these cases is indeed used to narrate a succession of events. In fact, Schwenter argues that the perfect functions as the ‘default’ form used to narrate events occur-ring in the interval of today (see also Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2008). My study of the Spanish of Madrid and Valencia corroborates this observation.20

The use of the periphrastic past in contexts of narrative sequence is certainly not limited to the few varieties of Peninsular Spanish discussed here (i.e. Madrid and Valencia). In her analysis of the perfect, Rodríguez Louro (2009) provides various examples of such uses from interviews with speakers from Barcelona. She compares


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cases like example (24) to analogous cases in Argentine Spanish where the simple past is used for all (obligatory) temporal sequencing. Example (24) exhibits all of the signs of sequencing including the use of telic predicates that indicated bounded events and definite past adverbials (e.g. a las 9 menos cuarto ‘at 8:45’). Note also the stative predicate he disfrutado ‘(I) have enjoyed’ used to situate the speaker’s reaction to the class.

(24) Pues me he levantado, me he despertado a las 9 menos cuarto. Me he levantado finalmente a las 9, he decidido levantarme. Me he metido en la ducha, he salido de la ducha, me he vestido. He desayunado un bowl de Kellogg’s y 5, 6 uvas más o menos. Me he hecho un café, me he secado el pelo, me he tomado el café. [...] Bueno he cogido mis cosas, me he preparado la bolsa, he salido de casa, he cogido la bici antes de salir de casa. Y nada he bajado [...]. Y...[he] cogido la bici y he llegado a la clase. He llegado tarde, como siempre. Y nada, he disfrutado una apasionante clase sin descanso y aquí estoy tomando una cerveza.

‘Well I have woken up, I have got up at quarter to 9. I have finally gotten up at 9, I have decided to get up. I have put myself into the shower, I have gotten dressed. I have had a bowl of Kellogg’s and about 5 or 6 grapes for breakfast. I have made myself a cof-fee, I have blow- dried my hair, I have had my coffee. [...] Well, I have picked up my stuff, I have prepared my bag, I have left the house, I have picked up the bike before leaving home. And not much, I have come downstairs [...]. And I have picked up the bike and I have made it to class. I have arrived to class late, as usual. And I have enjoyed an inspiring class without a break and here I am, sipping a beer.’ (from Rodríguez Louro 2009: 128, example 73)21

Corpus data from other varieties of Peninsular Spanish reveal distinct patterns of perfect usage with respect to compatibility in sequenced narratives. For instance, in the sample of speakers from Alcalá de Henares, two of the participants were born in Pontevedra, Galicia, in the northwestern part of Spain, and were living out-side of Madrid to attend the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares. The periphrastic past in the varieties of Spanish spoken in Galicia is quite distinct from other Peninsular dialects (see Chamorro 2010) and does not exhibit the types of narrative uses described here. Thus, in response to the request for a description of the day’s events, speaker


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MADM1801 offered the following (where preterits are indicated in boldface):

(25) Bueno pues por la mañana me desperté tarde porque siempre me despierto ah no hoy no hoy no me desperté tarde hoy tenía que entrar un trabajo para literatura. Y ayer estaba muy cansado para hacerlo entonces me desperté a las siete y media de la mañana y [me] puse [a] hacer un análisis de un de un relato corto. Y y nada. Lo acabé me duché [laughter] me peiné eh vine a cla clase y tuve bueno fue cuando te te presentaron. Luego tuvimos que hacer un examen oral de de inglés que teníamos que preparar un un diálogo pero yo y mi compañera preferimos no prepararlo e improv-isar y realmente salió mucho mejor porque cuando preparamos diálogos si se te olvida una frase ... ya es más difícil seguir entonces dije bueno vamos a hablar de nuestro fin de semana porque nos pasaban cosas muy diver-tidas a los dos. Y nada. Nos salió muy bien. ... Y ... acabamos de hacer el examen éste oral. Vinimos aquí a inscribirnos para hacer la grabación y luego tuvimos una hora de de literatura donde analizamos el texto que que tuve que hacer esta mañana. Y y nada. Luego comí con la chica que vino antes con Celia. Ahora fui a mi casa y volví ya estoy aquí.

‘Good, well in the morning I woke up late because I always wake up late ah no today no today I didn’t wake up late today, I had to do some work for my literature class and yesterday I was too tired to do it so I woke up at 7:30 in the morning and a started working on an analysis of a short story. And, well. I finished it, I showered [laughter] I brushed my hair um I came to cla class and I had, well, that was when they introduced you. Then we had to do an oral exam for for English where we had to prepare a a dialogue, but my partner and I preferred not to prepare it and improvise, and it actually went much better because when we prepare dialogues if you forget a sentence ... it’s more difficult to continue, so I said let’s just talk about our weekend because lots of fun stuff happened to both of us. And, well. It went really well. ... And ... we just finished that oral exam. We came here to sign up for the recording and then we had an hour of literature where we analyzed the text that I had to do this morning. And, well. Then, I ate with the girl who came earlier, Celia. Now I went to my house and returned and now I’m here.’ (MADM1801, Alcalá de Henares 2009)

For the narrative in (25), the speaker uses the preterit to indicate tem-poral sequence, along with the types of adverbials that were observed


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in the previous examples – e.g. entonces ‘then’ and luego ‘next’. This pattern of marking sequence in narratives is indeed the more general tendency across varieties of Spanish.22

One final point concerning temporal sequencing concerns the exten-sion of these uses beyond the confines of the today interval. Though cases of so- called pre- today reference are indeed attested in these varieties of Peninsular Spanish (see Serrano 1994, Brugger 2001, Kempas 2006), there is very little corpus evidence to suggest that the use of the perfect to indicate overt temporal sequencing has extended into more temporally remote contexts. As a viable counterexample to this claim, Serrano offers the following token:

(26) Ayer hemos celebrado una reunión con todos los alumnos del colegio. Lo más difícil ha sido poder reunir a tanta gente en tan poco tiempo. [...] Hemos comido de lo lindo, hemos bebido, hemos cantado y hemos recordado los viejos tiempos.‘Yesterday we met up with all of the students in the school. The most difficult thing has been being able to gather so many people in such little time. [...] We ate a lot, we drank, we sang and we remembered the old times.’ (cited from Serrano 1994: 49)

While it is true that the adverb ayer situates the narrative unambigu-ously in a pre- today interval, there are no additional indications that event sequence is required. In fact, most of the activities, i.e. eating, drinking, and singing, would most likely be interpreted as happen-ing concurrently. For example (26), the instances of the periphrastic past are best interpreted as offering a list of activities that occurred at the celebration with no particular sequence required. Observe that in order for the use of the predicate hemos recordado ‘we remembered’ to be felicitous, it would have to be interpreted as holding throughout the time of the party.

It is clear that this narrative use of the periphrastic past is limited to specific temporal contexts, namely hodiernal contexts, and thus has not developed the same range of contextual possibilities as the passé composé in Modern French. Moreover, this property is useful in further distinguishing the dialectal divide proposed in section 3.2. Also impor-tant to note is that other dialects that display perfective- type uses of the perfect, such as Peruvian Spanish, do not exhibit a parallel nar-rative function (see Chapter 4). This observation is significant in that it supports the claim that the cluster of Peninsular dialects discussed here represent the only Spanish situation in which the perfect- to- perfective


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path of grammaticalization is being realized in accordance with the Romance ‘norm’, assuming for the moment that the French case repre-sents the typical development. In other words, those dialects in which the present perfect displays some degree of perfectivity but does not exhibit the concomitant discourse features, such as narrative sequence, are not representative of the so- called ‘aoristic drift’ (i.e. the tendency for periphrastic past constructions in Romance to become perfective) described by Squartini and Bertinetto (2000).

3.3.3 Clause type distinctions

One of the claims frequently made concerning the perfect is that it is used to present background information with respect to the current situation (see Dahl and Hedin 2000).23 From the data observed in this section, the Peninsular Spanish perfect represents a clear departure from this aspect of the prototype since compatibility with sequencing is a trademark of foregrounding. Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos (2008) further note that this observation predicts that perfects will be favored in certain clause types, namely in relative clauses (as in 27) or causal clauses (see 28), which generally do not contribute to the foreground in a narrative. Other clause types that may favor a perfect are nonasser-tive clauses such as yes–no questions (as in 29) (cf. Dahl 1985, Dahl and Hedin 2000, Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos 2008).

(27) ¿Quiere otra pasta, madre? Este es el vino de Oporto que han traído ellos.‘Do you want another pastry, mother? This is the Port wine that they brought?’ (COREC, CCON019A)

(28) Y casi no me ha dado tiempo hacer nada más porque he vuelto a subir‘and I almost didn’t have time for anything else because I came back up’ (VAL04 070405: Interview 6)

(29) ¿Ah sí? ¿Le ha tocado?‘Yes? Has it happened to you?’ (México, Habla popular, 297)

Since the Peninsular Spanish perfect expresses increased perfectivity, there should be less of a preference for clause type. For Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos (2008), clause type is not selected as a significant factor in the distribution of the periphrastic versus the simple past in Peninsular Spanish. For Mexican Spanish, however, the results are different, with a high probability that perfects occur either in yes–no questions or in relative clauses. This split corroborates the observation that the Mexican Spanish present perfect retains the prototypical perfect


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use of expressing background information. The lack of preference in the Peninsular case also supports the claim of increased perfectivity, given that this development would be accompanied by generalization to a larger domain of past temporal reference.

3.3.4 Variation of perfect types

In this section I will discuss two characteristics related to the increased perfectivity with periphrastic pasts that directly influence the type of available meanings. The first concerns use of the Spanish perfect to indicate actions or states initiated in the past that continue into the present. I demonstrate that in dialects such as Peninsular Spanish this meaning is disfavored with the perfect. Secondly, increased uses of a perfect in Hot News situations also provide further measure for degree of perfectivity.

Continuative/Duratives in Spanish

The argument I wish develop here concerns the use of the Spanish present perfect to denote a state beginning in the past and continu-ing into the present (i.e. Comrie’s Perfect of Persistent Situation or the Continuative/universal perfect). As noted in the previous chapter, the only form that allows for this type of interpretation in English is the present perfect; the present tense is incompatible with partial past refer-ence (see example 30).24 For Spanish, either the present perfect or the present tense can express this type of meaning. See example (31):

(30) a. I have lived in Athens for four years.b. *I live in Athens for four years.

(31) a. He vivido en Athens durante cuatro años.b. Hace cuatro años que vivo en Athens.

Burgos argues that the Continuative interpretation of (31a) is possible only in presence of temporal modification (see also Mittwoch 1988, Iatridou et al. 2001, Kiparsky 2002, Portner 2003, among others). Though I will discuss this point in more detail in the forthcoming chapter, I submit that the temporal modification needed for such a reading need not be explicit, i.e. does not require an overt adverbial. Consider (32):

(32) A: ¿Por qué no está Juan aquí?‘Why isn’t Juan here?’

B: Ha estado enfermo.‘He’s been sick’ (Interpretation: he’s still sick)


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Burgos further points out that the Spanish simple past may also be used to indicate a continuing present state. To have this interpretation, how-ever, one of three factors must hold: (a) the subject or objects must be plural count NPs (as in 33), (b) there must be an adverbial like desde hace ‘since’ (again in 33), or (c) the clause must be of negative polarity (see 34). This use of the simple past is not surprising given the proposal suggested by Cipria and Roberts (2000) that the preterit is indeterminate with respect to its resulting Aktionsart. For English (shown in example 35), the Continuative interpretation is not allowed with the simple past.

(33) Pedro escribió cartas desde hace un par de días (pero aún le quedan varias por escribir).‘Pedro has been writing letters for a couple days now (but he still has several to write).’ (Burgos 2004: 187, example 450a)

(34) No reconocí todavía que se pueda llegar a una solución en las próxi-mas horas.‘I haven’t yet recognized that a solution could reached in the coming hours.’ (Burgos 2004: 188, example 459a)

(35) Pedro (#so far) wrote letters during the last few days. (Interpretation: he’s not still writing letters)

Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos note that ‘the Preterit may also appear in continuative contexts such as that seen in [(36)] with an overt indication that a past situation continues to obtain in the present’ (2008: 6):

(36) Pero ya vi que ... que fui más o menos agarrándole a fondo, y le seguí hasta la fecha.‘[Talking about playing the guitar] But I finally realized that ... that I was more or less getting it right, and I have continued up until now.’ (Lope Blanch 1976)

It appears that what is common to the cases in which a Durative use of a periphrastic or simple past is licensed relates to the presence of some ateli-cizing element either explicit in the discourse (as in 31, 33, 34, and 36) or entailed by the context (as in 32). One important distinction between these cases is that the Durative meaning of the periphrastic past only arises with an atelic predicate (e.g. estar enfermo ‘to be sick’). Eventive predicates with the periphrastic past only give rise to Experiential- type readings – e.g. Pedro ha escrito cartas ‘Pedro has written letters (at some point in the past)’ and not ‘Pedro has been writing letters (and still hasn’t finished)’.


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One of the most commonly studied issues related to the English present perfect is the purported ambiguity between the Continuative reading of (30) and the Experiential reading (see Dowty 1979, Mittwoch 1988, Portner 2003 for extensive discussions of these interpretations), both represented in (37):

(37) I have lived in Athens for four years.a. Continuative/Universal: the speaker still lives in Athens at

the time of speechb. Experiential/Existential: the speaker lived in Athens at some

time before the moment of speech for a period of four years but does not live there now

While the Spanish perfect in (31) allows for both interpretations, the present tense permits only the Continuative one. What is further inter-esting about the Spanish case is that speakers from different dialects vary in their preference of forms used to indicate a continuing state. The prediction that follows from the current analysis is that as the periphrastic past develops functions of a perfective the likelihood of its being used to express meanings typical of imperfective forms should decrease. The Continuative interpretation is essentially imperfective since, like the Spanish imperfective past, it displays the subinterval property (see Dowty 1987, Cipria and Roberts 2000).25 Thus, the sen-tence he vivido en Athens durante cuatro años ‘I have lived in Athens for four years’ under the Continuative interpretation entails that ‘live in Athens’ is true at any given subinterval during the relevant interval of four years, including the moment of utterance. Crucially, we must assume that this property applies only to the predicate ‘live in Athens’ since inclusion of the adverbial would require that live- in- Athens- for- four- years be true at any given interval, which clearly is not the intended meaning.

García Fernández (2000a: 345) observes that ‘[e]l presente es una forma verbal que aspectualmente expresa [aspecto] Imperfecto, es decir even-tos que están teniendo lugar y cuyo final no se predica’, adding that ‘no es cierto sin más que las formas compuestas adquieran a veces el valor del Imperfecto; sólo lo hacen cuando el Imperfecto tiene especificado el inicio del evento’ (350, emphasis mine).26 Thus, García Fernández describes some parallels between the type of imperfectivity expressed by a present tense (or an imperfective past form) and the Continuative (or Durative) reading obtained with some periphrastic pasts by pointing out that neither form is compatible with right boundary modification,


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as observed in the examples shown in (38), adapted from García Fernández 2000a: 345):

(38) a. María ha vivido sola desde el año 1990.‘Maria has lived alone since 1990.’

b. *María ha vivido sola desde el año 1990 hasta el año pasado.‘Maria has lived alone since 1990 until last year.’

c. *María vive sola desde 1990 hasta el año pasado.‘Maria has lived alone since 1990 until last year.’

With respect to the claim regarding the dialectal variability of the Continuative interpretation, Howe and Rodríguez Louro (2010) have argued that, like the simple and periphrastic past distinction, the present perfect vs present tense relationship is also subject to variation depend-ing primarily on the nature of the development of the periphrastic past. Given the semantic nature of these processes of grammaticalization (i.e. perfect to perfectivity), it is not surprising that meanings incompat-ible with perfective uses would become attenuated or lost. Such is the case with Modern French where the passé composé, which is generally incompatible with a Durative reading (as shown in 39b), is however compatible with such an interpretation under the influence of nega-tion, as in example (40):

(39) a. *Cela fait cinq ans que Marie a habité seule.b. Marie a habité seule de 1990 jusqu’à l’année dernière.

‘Marie lived alone from 1990 to last year.’(40) Je ne l’ai pas vu depuis un an.

‘I haven’t seen him for a year.’

This fact about the French passé composé poses interesting questions about the nature of semantic retention in this case since it is typically argued that older meanings of a form persist (or are ‘layered’) with new ones (see Hopper 1991: 22–4). Howe and Rodríguez Louro (2010) argue that as a periphrastic past continues to evolve into a perfective, imperfective meanings (e.g. the Continuative meaning) will be relegated to marginal contexts (cf. Hopper and Traugott 2003: 124). Thus, opposi-tion between the periphrastic past and the present tense in Spanish, according to Howe and Rodríguez Louro, is a ‘peripheral context’ of semantic change, i.e. one that recedes as a result of pressure from a more dominant functional space, in this case the opposition between the periphrastic and the simple past. Just as a comparison of the simple


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past vis-à-vis the periphrastic past reveals considerable differences with respect to overall frequency distributions, so too does a comparison of the periphrastic past and the present tense. Observe that in Table 3.5, the usage of the present tense with desde hace (which requires a Durative meaning) falls off sharply, beginning with the sample from Argentine Spanish, to the Mexican sample, and finally the Peninsular Spanish sample (data from the CREA corpus). These preliminary data provide a more general picture of the perfect to perfective pathway in Spanish, one that considers the roles that a target form (i.e. the periphrastic past) may have in multiple domains of functional overlap.

Cross- dialectally, those varieties with increasingly perfective peri-phrastic pasts should favor the present tense construction for expressing a state or an eventuality that began in the past and holds at speech time. Conversely, speakers from dialects such as Mexican Spanish would not disfavor use of the perfect to code Continuative meaning (see Lope Blanch 1972, Harris 1982, Moreno de Alba 1978, and Company Company 2002).27

Though the Durative use of the periphrastic past is attested in all Spanish dialects, the argument being made here is that as increased perfective functions develop, the periphrastic past becomes disfavored for this type of interpretation. There are various independent motiva-tions for this claim. First, as seen above, the French passé composé, which represents the Romance prototype of periphrastic forms developing into true perfective pasts, is not used to express actions or states continuing into the present, as observed in example (39) and in the following:

(41) Je lis depuis qu’ il est sorti.I read.3 since that he is.3 leave.PARTICIPLE

‘I have been reading since he left.’(42) J’ ai habité à Paris pendant trois années.

I have.3 live.PARTICIPLE in Paris during three years‘I have lived in Paris for three years.’

Table 3.5 Overall usage frequencies for the periphrastic past and the present tense plus desde hace

Periphrastic past Present tense

Peninsular Spanish 19% (N � 34) 81% (N � 147)




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a. � Experiential reading: the speaker lived in Paris during some three- year period which does not overlap with speech time

b. � Continuative: the speaker has lived in Paris for a three- year period which extends into the present

Calvez notes that in French ‘the verb of the main clause is in the present indicative if the action begun is still going on now [i.e. at the time of utterance]’ (1993: 277, see also Engel 1990). Like the Spanish present tense (shown in 31b), the French present tense can also be used with the same Durative meaning, as in example (41). The periphrastic passé composé, however, does not provide the same the range of possible interpretations. In example (42) the speaker is not reading at the moment of utterance; instead, the sentence merely indicates some occurrence (or occurrences) of the action of reading taking place during the interval that began with his leaving and continuing to speech time.

Interestingly, the periphrastic past in Portuguese (or pretérito perfeito composto) displays the reverse behavior with respect to Durative readings, i.e. Experiential readings are prohibited and an iterative interpretation is required (see Campos 1986, Giorgi and Pianesi 1997, Schmitt 2001).28 Harris (1982) argues that the periphrastic past in Portuguese is less grammaticalized than either of its Peninsular Spanish or French counterparts (and thus expresses no perfective functions). Thus, we can predict that (43) will not give rise to Experiential- type interpretations. As described by the interpretations shown in (43a) and (43b), this predication is borne out:

(43) Eu tenho morado no Rio por três anos.I have.1 live.PARTICIPLE in-the Rio for three years‘I have lived in Rio [de Janeiro] for three years.’a. � Experiential: the speaker lived in Rio during some three- year period which does not overlap with speech timeb. � Durative: the speaker has lived in Rio for a three- year period which extends into the present

From this survey of the possibility of Continuative interpretations across Romance periphrastic constructions, we again note that Spanish seems to lie somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of grammaticalization. Within the list of Spanish dialects, we can observe a microcosm of the larger Romance situation, with the increasingly perfective perfect of the Peninsular varieties and the typically nonperfective uses in the case of Mexican Spanish.


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Further corroborating this claim are the data presented by Schwenter and Torres Cacoullos (2008) concerning the relative Aktionsart prefer-ences of the periphrastic past in Peninsular and Mexican Spanish. Their survey demonstrates that lexical aspect was not selected as a significant factor in the distribution of the perfect in their sample of Peninsular Spanish. For Mexican Spanish, not only was Aktionsart selected as a significant constraint but the results moreover showed that durative predicates (i.e. atelics and iterative telics) were preferred over punctual ones. This class of predicates represents the same group that allows for Continuative readings. Therefore, speakers of Mexican Spanish seem to prefer the periphrastic past in exactly those cases in which Continuative readings are permissible (i.e. with atelic or iterative telic predicates).

Related to these findings, the various sources of corpus data from Peninsular Spanish also demonstrate a preference for the Experiential reading of the perfect in cases where an ambiguity is possible. For instance, in he estado enfermo ‘I have been sick’, the atelic predicate allows for either an Experiential or a Continuative interpretation. In Peninsular Spanish, the favored meaning in these cases is the Experiential reading. Note the following examples:

(44) Han ido todos, sí señor, yo he estado allí esta madrugada ...‘All of them have gone, yes sir, I was there this morning ...’ (CREA, oral)

(45) Este sábado ha sido un buen día para el deporte español.‘This Saturday was a good day for Spanish sports.’ (CREA, oral)

(46) Hasta ahora no conozco yo, ni he conocido jamás, un industrial textil que haya podido solucionar sus problemas empresariales a través de un incendio.‘Even now I don’t know, nor have I ever known of, a textile industry that has been able to solve its business problems by starting a fire.’ (CREA, oral)

In examples (44)–(46) the intended interpretations are all Experiential. As a matter of fact, the speaker in (46) switches from the present tense to the periphrastic past and in doing so alternates between Continuative and the Experiential meanings. Of course, it is still possible to have Continuative meanings with these types of predicates, even in Peninsular Spanish. Observe the following:

(47) He vivido allí ... toda la vida.‘I have lived there ... all of my life.’ (MAD05062905: Interview 4)


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When combined with atelics, the Mexican Spanish perfects tend to favor Continuative readings, but Experiential uses are also possible:

(48) Yo he permanecido quieta y oyente por otra cosa, he estado enferma.‘I have been quiet and attentive for another reason, I have been sick.’ (CREA, oral)

(49) Y ora, hasta el momento, ya ... pos ya ... he estado siempre bien.‘And now, even up to the present, well ... well ... I have always been okay.’ (Lope Blanch 1976)

Additional evidence of my claim regarding the limited use of the periphrastic past in Peninsular Spanish with Continuative meaning can be found by observing the effects of negation. We would expect that Continuative uses would be preserved with the perfect in the presence of negation, which has an atelicizing effect on telics.29 Though such cases are attested, as seen in (50), the present tense can also occur under the scope of negation to express Continuative meaning. Note example (51):

(50) Yo hace mucho tiempo que no la he olido, ¿eh?‘It’s been a long time since I haven’t smelled it, you know?’ (COREC, BCON048A)

(51) ‘Yo antes fumaba, y, claro,’ dice: ‘Ahora ya que hace tres años que que no fumo.’‘I used to smoke before, and, of course’ he said: ‘Now it’s been three years that I haven’t smoked.’ (COREC, CCON018D)

In observing other Continuative uses in the Peninsular data, there are very few cases in which the periphrastic past occurs without additional specification lending itself to a Continuative use – e.g. nega-tion. For instance, speakers frequently produce examples such as (52), which have a progressive under the scope of the perfect, forcing a Continuative interpretation. Moreover, many of the attested cases with the construction hace � TIME, which allows for Continuative interpreta-tions, give rise instead to a punctual (i.e. ‘ago’) interpretation, which is also produced by the simple past in combination with the hace � TIME construction. Note example (53):

(52) ... y el tío se ha venido armando, desde hace tiempo todo todo ese dinero que se ha gastado en en armamento‘... and the guy has been arming himself, for a while all, all of the money that he has spent on, on weapons’ (COREC, CCON004C)


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(53) Tengo un amigo que estuvo hace poco en Co/ en Costa Rica, y justo en ese restaurant[e] se encontraron con– con algún conocido‘I have a friend who was until recently in Co/ in Costa Rica, and in that very restaurant he ran into someone he knew’ (COREC)

In the data from Mexican Spanish (Lope Blanch 1971, 1976), the perfect does not occur frequently with the hace � TIME construction. With the present tense, the expected Continuative interpretation is achieved, as in example (54). As with the Peninsular perfect in (55) below, the simple past in Mexican Spanish produces the punctual meaning when combined with the hace � TIME construction:30

(54) Los conozco hace cinco años apenas.‘I have known them for at least five years.’ (Lope Blanch 1976)

(55) Hace quince días sí lo vi.Yes, ‘I saw him five years ago.’ (Lope Blanch 1976)

‘Hot News’ uses of the periphrastic past

Among the cases in which the present perfect most closely resembles the simple past, in both English and Spanish, is the so- called ‘perfect of recent past’ or ‘Hot News’ perfect (a term originally introduced by McCawley 1971). Found frequently in news items, examples like (56a) and (56b) illustrate the ability of the perfect to make reference to events occurring in a recent past:

(56) a. Slobodan Milosevic ha muerto en la cárcel.b. Slobodan Milosevic has died in prison.

In both of the examples in (56), the events described are bounded situations that occur in a discrete (and recent) past. This type of tem-poral reference is also characteristic of perfective forms, suggesting that Hot News perfects display a greater degree of perfectivity than do other perfect types, e.g. Experientials or Resultatives. Unlike the Experiential perfect, which can refer to an event occurring in a distant past (shown in 57), the Hot News perfect is limited with respect to its temporal capabilities, being confined to recent (and normally important) events. For an Experiential perfect, relevance is a contextual requirement such that if no relevant relation can be determined use of the periphrastic past is infelicitous.


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(57) [ Juan is 30 years old]Juan ha visitado Brasil dos veces: una vez cuando tenía diez años y otra vez cuando tenía dieciocho.‘Juan has visited Brazil two times: once when he was 10 years old and again when he was 18.’

In his treatment of Hot News perfects in Peninsular Spanish, Schwenter (1994b) proposes that these uses of the perfect arise in a diachronically late phase of development. Yet he also claims that ‘the relationship of hot news to the present situation is not characteristic of other perfect functions’, by which he suggests, as I have above, that Hot News perfects are more perfective than ‘canonical’ uses of a perfect (e.g. Experiential, resultant state) (Schwenter 1994b: 1001). Evidence for the parallelism with perfectives is reflected in, as Schwenter puts it, the ‘tenuous’ connection between the past event and the current dis-course context. If Hot News perfects do in fact display a greater degree of perfectivity, then it should be the case that these uses are found in greater numbers in Spanish dialects in which the present perfect has already assumed functions of a perfective, e.g. Peninsular Spanish. This is precisely the conclusion presented by Schwenter who compares Hot News uses of the present perfect in Peninsular Spanish versus that of Mexico. In his evaluation of five 30-minute segments from newscasts from both Mexico and Spain, Schwenter found that only 6 out of the 42 stories (or 14 percent) presented in the Mexican case used the Hot News perfect while 24 stories (out of 53), or 45 percent, were marked by the perfect in the Peninsular reports. Examples from each dialect are presented below.

(58) Mexican SpanishHa muerto el actor Vincent Price. Famoso por sus papeles en películas de horror, Price falleció anoche, reportó un vocero del actor.‘The actor Vincent Price has died. Famous for his roles in horror movies, Price passed away last night, a spokesperson for the actor reported ...’ (Schwenter1994b: 1017, example 27)

(59) Peninsular SpanishEn Vic, ha explotado una bomba, causando daños a algunas tiendas, pero ninguna herida. La bomba estalló esta mañana poco antes de las ocho ...‘In Vic, a bomb has exploded, causing damage to some store-fronts, but no injuries. The bomb exploded this morning a little before eight o’clock ...’ (Schwenter 1994b: 1018, example 28)


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In both of the examples presented above, the news story is introduced using the perfect (in bold), which is immediately followed in each case by details of the particular events, all of which are reported using the simple past (underlined). While it is not unexpected to find the peri-phrastic past limited solely to the topic sentence, since this is also the distribution of the Hot News perfects and simple pasts found in English news text, the contrast between the frequency of Hot News uses in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish is intriguing. Note also that the topics presented by examples (58) and (59) are of the more general, ‘social’ relevance type described above; that is, the two news reports discuss the death of a prominent actor, as in (58), and the exploding of a bomb, in (59). In his own survey of headlines from Argentine radio, Burgos (2004) claims that Hot News functions are almost exclusively performed by the preterit.31 Instead of the periphrastic past, the simple past is used in (60) despite the fact that the story is comparable in terms of its content to that of (59):

(60) Argentine SpanishDurante esta mañana estalló una bomba en la sede del diario español El Mundo en Cataluña.‘A bomb exploded this morning at the main office of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo in Cataluña.’ (Burgos 2004: 204, example 543)

Following from these observations, Schwenter proposes that Hot News uses of the perfect are characteristic of the early stages of the perfect- to- perfective path in the development of Romance perfects, possibly giving rise to other perfective uses, e.g. hodiernal past, narra-tive sequencing. Although I find Schwenter’s analysis a useful measure for further determining dialectal divisions, I am not convinced that Hot News perfects play any significant role in the development of perfective functions. There are two main reasons for my claim. First, the Hot News use of the perfect is limited almost exclusively to written language and thus should not be expected to have any significant effect on usage in spoken registers. Second, the fact that this use is found in most (if not all) other varieties of Spanish (e.g. Mexican and Argentine), and indeed other languages, whose perfects do not exhibit increased perfectivity (e.g. English), suggests that it exists along with other perfect functions without triggering any of the related perfective uses. Therefore, I argue that the increased use of perfects in Hot News contexts observed by Schwenter in the case of Peninsular Spanish is merely a reflection of the advanced grammaticalization of the


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periphrastic past in these varieties rather than a necessary preliminary stage to perfectivity.

3.4 Summary and discussion

To summarize the claims made in this section, I present Table 3.6.It distinguishes two groups of dialects: (i) those demonstrating a pref-

erence for the simple past and (ii) those that favor the periphrastic past. Though I have presented the two groups as essentially polar opposites with respect to the first factor, I am attempting to account for the obser-vation that compatibility with certain groups of definite past adverbials (e.g. hoy ‘today’, ayer ‘yesterday’), while restricted, is systematic in varieties of Peninsular Spanish. Regarding each factor, we find a clear distinction between the two groups. Of course, there will be subcases for each group that are more or less loyal to the factors that have been listed here; with any broad dialectal characterization, this type of variation is expected. Still, the partition proposed here is a robust generalization about the periphrastic past across dialects of Spanish. To bring this section to a close, I offer Table 3.7 (to contrast the Spanish situation with that of Standard American and British English, which are also commonly treated as differing in terms of the relative perfectivity of the present perfect; see Comrie 1985). The former of these two dialects has been described as the more historically conservative of the pair, retaining many of the same prototypical perfect uses displayed by the Mexican or Argentine cases (Traugott 1972).

Table 3.6 Cross- dialectal comparison of simple and periphrastic past forms in Spanish: I

Features Dialects by form preference

Group I(e.g. Mexican Spanish)

Group II(e.g. Peninsular Spanish)

1. Overall frequency Simple past preferred Periphrastic past preferred

2. Compatibility with definite past adverbials

Dispreferred with periphrastic past

Limited compatibility with periphrastic past

3. Use in sequenced narratives

Only with simple past Limited compatibility with periphrastic past

4. Continuative uses Periphrastic past and present tense

Present tense preferred

5. Hot News uses Simple past preferred Periphrastic past preferred


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If we compare Tables 3.6 and 3.7,32 we can see that the two languages, and their related dialects, are similar, though not exactly parallel when it comes to the distribution of the simple and periphrastic past forms. The present perfect in British English shows some of the same perfec-tive uses as that of Peninsular Spanish – observe examples (61) and (62). Burgos claims that the British perfect, like that of Madrid or Alicante, is hodiernal, obeying the so- called ‘24-hour rule’ which requires that adverbial modification be confined to adverbs that refer to any interval falling in the 24-hour period extending backwards from the moment of utterance. The British perfect cannot combine with more distant adverbs like last week, as shown in (63). This is also generally the case with the periphrastic past in Peninsular Spanish.

(61) The employment secretary David has today told company bosses in Nottingham that treating their staff properly will save them money and boost their profits. (BNC: FXT 549, cited in Burgos 2004: 274, example 882)

(62) Thank you, the point which Mr. [Smith] has made yesterday, [and] I think will continue to make. (BNC: HVH 525, cited in Burgos 2004: 274, example 883)

(63) *Thank you, the point which Mr. [Smith] has made last week, I think will continue to make.

Other than the increased perfectivity characterized by its compat-ibility with (a very limited range of) definite past adverbials, there is no reason to assume that the present perfect in British English has gram-maticized (or will grammaticalize) to the same stage represented by

Table 3.7 Cross- dialectal comparison of simple and periphrastic past forms in English

Features Dialects by form preference

American English British English

1. Overall frequency Simple past preferred Periphrastic past preferred

2. Compatibility with definite past adverbials

Dispreferred with periphrastic past

Limited compatibility with periphrastic past

3. Continuative uses Periphrastic past preferred

Periphrastic past preferred

4. Hot News uses Periphrastic past preferred

Periphrastic past preferred


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Peninsular Spanish. Regardless of the trends affecting the development of the simple vs periphrastic past dichotomy in dialects of English, this (very) brief survey suggests, at the very least, that the situation in English is qualitatively distinct from that of Spanish where some Peninsular dialects do indeed show features of emergent perfective meaning.33

It has been argued in this chapter that the spectrum of Spanish dia-lects can be divided into two distinct groups based on the functional distribution of the periphrastic past. In the first group (cf. Group I from Table 3.6) we find dialects such as Mexican Spanish where use of the simple past is preferred for most types of past- time reference; the peri-phrastic past is relegated to certain aspectual uses, primarily expressing interpretations akin to imperfective aspect (such as Durative uses). One of the commonly made claims regarding the periphrastic past in Latin American Spanish is its virtual absence in comparison with the rather prolific use of the perfect in Peninsular varieties. In fact, Berman and Slobin (1994) found that the periphrastic past is highly disfavored by Chilean and Argentine children (aged 3–9). And though this ‘absence’ is not complete in the speech of adult speakers from these dialects, the frequency of the periphrastic past in comparison to the dominant simple past is negligible.

The second group (cf. Group II from Table 3.6) of this dialectal parti-tion is represented primarily by the areally proximal varieties of the Iberian Peninsula, such as the Spanish of Madrid, Alicante, and Valencia. Unifying these cases is the steady progression of the periphrastic past into functional areas generally associated with the preterit. This shift is evidenced by the acceptability of the perfect with a limited range of past tense adverbials, its use in sequenced narratives, disfavoring of Continuative readings in the appropriate contexts, and the increased frequency of Hot News interpretations.

To conclude, part of the motivation for this chapter has been to defend the proposal that there is no single periphrastic past in Spanish but rather that there are grounds for the claim that Spanish dialects in general can be associated with one of the two groups described in Table 3.6. For the reader, it will of course come as no surprise that my analysis demonstrates that the dialectal divisions correspond quite well with geographic borders, i.e. the simple past being favored in Latin American dialects and the perfect being favored in Peninsular dialects (see Zamora Vicente 1974, López Morales 1996, Penny 2000, among others). What is innovative about the current proposal is that this distinction has been shown empirically to coincide with the distribution of a number of well- studied features related to both perfect constructions and to perfectives


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(see Chapter 2). Furthermore, I have demonstrated that while the periphrastic past in Group II dialects certainly exhibits a greater degree of functional convergence with the simple past than those of Group I, we must be cautious in our typology since features such as adverbial co- occurrence and narrative sequencing do not display the full range of distribution as they would with prototypical perfectives.


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the spanish perfects ||

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